The word ‘uninspired’ is an easy shortcut to communicate an impression of unpleasant mediocrity, and so it gets thrown around a lot. It is also the perfect term for The Thing, the new film by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. that acts as a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 film of the same name. Uninspired, right off the bat: no one could even bother to tack a subtitle onto this movie, much less an entirely new name.

The Thing ‘11 is slavishly devoted to the ‘82 effort, which has evolved from box-office flop to a revered horror icon. Ostensibly a prequel, this film is so heavily attached to the old, like a pre-surgery Belial, that I’m not sure there was ever a chance it could grow a personality of its own. It appropriates some of Ennio Morricone’s score for the ‘82, noticeably the low bass throb of the original main theme, but it might as well adopt Olivia Newton John’s AM radio hit ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ as the real theme. In short, The Thing ‘11 is a fan film on a studio budget. Read More »

In Soviet Russia, Thing absorbs you! Wait, that doesn’t work. The Thing always absorbs you. Well, anyway, here’s a Russian trailer for the upcoming prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing. It has a lot of stuff we’ve seen before and a few things we haven’t, with the only trade-off being that the dialogue is all dubbed into Russian. But you can probably deal with that if all you want is a few new bits of footage. Check out what’s in store, after the break. Read More »

With the release of Universal’s prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 movie The Thing now less than a month away, we’re starting to see more footage. There’s a trailer and a clip or two out there already. Now a new TV spot offers some new footage as well as a couple looks at the effects. (Sadly, they seem to be mostly CGI.) Check it out below. Read More »

Universal is going to release The Thing, the Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.-directed prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, on October 14. But the film has had a fairly low profile so far, with only a few photos, a teaser poster and one teaser trailer released.

Today a clip has gone online. It doesn’t show much of the creature effects, which are the chief subject of speculation amongst fans of Carpenter’s film. It does, however, show the first emergence of the title creature from a block of ice, and in so doing suggests a few things about the movie. Check it out below. Read More »

Those waiting to see the prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing this April will instead find flashy cars on screen at the theater. Universal had planned to release their new version ofThe Thing, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., starring Joel Edgerson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead on April 29, 2011. However, a studio spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times that film was “not yet ready” and has now been left without a release date.

Instead, they’re bumped Fast Five, the fifth installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise, directed by Justin Lin, starring Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker up into that slot, abandoning its original June 10, 2011 release, “citing the successful release of the franchise’s fourth film in April 2009.” Read how the release date shifts might be a good thing, as well some “creative” issues surrounding another Universal property, their adaptation of Ouija, after the jump. Read More »

The forthcoming prequel/remake of John Carpenter’s The Thing, one of the best sci-fi horror pictures to come out of the ’80s, has caused no small amount of consternation. Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) wrote a script which is currently being rewritten by Eric Heisserer, who also worked on a rewrite of the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot. We haven’t known much about Moore and Heisserer’s approach to the story. Bloody Disgusting got a few comments about the approach and how Heisserer is ‘reverse engineering’ the story of the doomed Norwegian camp that dug up the shape-shifting alien that eventually battled Kurt Russell & Co. Read More »